The Best One-Album Wonders in Pop Music

One-hit wonders are common throughout music history, but one-album wonders are rarer. Still, from Hootie & the Blowfish to the Joan Osborne, a number of bands over the years have recorded one absolute smash album and then found themselves unable to repeat that success, no matter how hard they tried.

Here's my personal list of the seven Best One-Album Wonders in music. While older bands like the Sex Pistols could be considered one-album wonders, this list focuses mostly on commercially-successful pop music from the last 20 years.

#7: David Gray
British singer-songwriter David Gray's 2000 album White Ladder was full of emotionally vulnerable tunes that connected with listeners, from the hits "Babylon" and "Please Forgive Me" to a fantastic re-working of Soft Cell's "Say Hello Wave Goodbye." The record also featured two beautiful ballads, "This Year's Love" and "Nightblindness," the latter of which was a stunning, stark portrait of trying to find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.

White Ladder left Gray poised to become a long-term success in the U.S., but his next release A New Day at Midnight was full of depressing songs that failed to win over audiences, and he's never recorded another hit stateside, leaving him as a one-album wonder in this country.

#6: Terence Trent D'Arby
Bursting onto the scene in 1987 with Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby, the singer incorporated soul, rock and pop in such impressive fashion that he seemed to have a chance to become the next Prince. Hit singles "Wishing Well" and "Sign Your Name" led to a Grammy award and a ton of buzz. But D'Arby's next record bombed, and though his third effort Symphony or Damn was beloved by critics, it was ignored by fans.

D'Arby isn't considered a one-album wonder in England, where he notched several more hit singles throughout the 1990s before changing his name to Sananda Maitreya as a way to escape the shadow of his earlier work.

#5: The Wallflowers
Bob Dylan's son Jakob was the biggest thing in pop-rock music in 1996 thanks to several hits from the Wallflowers' Bringing Down the Horse. "One Headlight" was the biggest hit, but the best track was "6 Avenue Heartache," a beautiful rock song heavy on the slide guitar. That album went four-times platinum, but its follow-up was a dud, producing just one hit that flamed out at #73, leaving the Wallflowers with one-album wonder status.

These days Jakob Dylan is performing with a new band, the Gold Mountain Rebels. They've played prestigious gigs such as Bonnaroo, where they performed just one old Wallflowers track, "Three Marlenas."

#4: Joan Osborne
Joan Osborne became a household name by asking, "What if God was one of us?" In a way, "One of Us" was a bit of a misleading single for Osborne, because it polished her usually gravelly voice and didn't showcase any of the blues and soul influences that color the rest of Relish, her excellent 1995 debut. "Right Hand Man," "Ladder" and "Spider Web" are much truer to Osborne's sound, while the mandolin and vocal sweeps of the album opener "St. Teresa" are captivating.

Though Osborne has never repeated the commercial success of Relish, she has managed a lengthy career performing in various genres. She performed several concerts with Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. Osborne also toured with Motown performers and played at the Grand Ole Opry, the mecca of country music.

#3: The Postal Service
It's easy to become a one-album wonder when you only record one album. The group featuring Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie and Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel recorded Give Up in 2003 and soon found their bleepy electro pop featured in advertisements for the actual United States Postal Service. "The District Sleeps Tonight" and "Such Great Heights" left fans wanting more, but, although the pair started work on a second album, it's not close to being finished and may never be.

The band recorded one more gem, a terrific cover of the Phil Collins hit "Against All Odds" for the film WickerPark, but hasn't yet gotten around to recording that follow-up album. "The anticipation of the second record has been a far bigger deal for everybody except the two of us," Gibbard told Rolling Stone. "There never really was a plan to do a second album. We work from time to time together but we have other things that take up all of our time."

#2: Fugees
Most artists on this list released one smash album and then were unable to repeat its success. But the Fugees are a one-album wonder because they simply chose not to release any more albums. The group's 1996 sophomore effort The Score produced the year's biggest hit in "Killing Me Softly," as well as hip hop hits "Fu-Gee-La," "Ready or Not" and "No Woman No Cry" featuring Stephen Marley.

Though the band never recorded together again, Wyclef Jean produced a classic with his solo debut The Carnival, while Lauryn Hill released a masterpiece of her own with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, a Grammy winner for Album of the Year.

#1: Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie's debut Cracked Rear View still stands as the 15th-best-selling album ever released, ranking up there with Led Zeppelin, the Eagles and the Beatles. The record produced four huge singles in 1994 and 1995: "Hold My Hand," "Let Her Cry," "Only Wanna Be With You" and "Time." The band also captured the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, which should've been the first clue that they weren't destined for long-term success.

Hootie's follow-up album Fairweather Johnson also reached #1 but quickly dropped off the charts after listeners realized it had nothing to offer. At least frontman Darius Rucker decided to move on and was able to put together a solid country music career, leaving Hootie & the Blowfish to reign as our choice for the best one-album wonder of all-time.

Best One-Album Wonders: Sources
www.allmusic.com
www.rollingstone.com